• by March 1, 2001

By Adam Bernard

This morning, at the Jupiter Media Metrix show, AOL President and COO, Bob Pittman, hit on what he feels is the main reason a lot of advertisers either fail, or don't do as well as they'd like, when it comes to advertising on the net. He said it all starts with the fact that a lot of advertisers aren't taking advantage of the Internet as the only vehicle that can do all three phases of advertising commerce, which are branding, information, and sales.

Companies spend a good amount of their money on branding, and while branding is important, Pittman feels that the money would be better spent on information and sales, because the Internet is actually better at those phases in the advertising process than branding.

The information phase, the step of the advertising process where the consumer gets to investigate and examine the product or company being advertised, is something no other medium can offer with the same amount of magnitude that the net can.

Pittman said that one can't click on a television ad and go straight to information about the product, but with the Internet that's not only a possibility, it's exactly what the consumer does.

If someone clicks on an ad and goes to a site with little, or no, information, it's even worse than having no ad at all. Having an unknown brand is bad, but having a brand people already have a bad taste in their mouth about is even worse, he said.

Later in the morning there was a roundtable discussion that also hit on many key advertising points. Scott Kurnit, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of About, Inc., pointed out that despite the current state of internet advertising, advertisers should continue to use the net because it's the only place where they can have personal, targeted, ads.

Kevin Mayer, CEO, Internet, Clear Channel, added that he feels there will be a silver lining to the current situation, and it would fall under the heading of "survival of the fittest." He said that once the economy is back, the strong companies will have survived, which will lead to a better selling environment.

- Adam Bernard may be reached at AdamBernard@mediapost.com